


Bane of the Doctor - Part 5: A Visit to The Archive

by RodimusDoctor



Series: Bane of the Doctor [6]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who), Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 21:31:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1484782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RodimusDoctor/pseuds/RodimusDoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor (11th) and Clara Oswald visit the Delirium Archive to investigate a time-space anomaly. They find the holoprojector-version of River Song, who had been waiting for the Doctor to visit for several hundred years. She tells them what she knows about Dirge Manson and his plans, and triggers a catastrophic emotional reaction in the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bane of the Doctor - Part 5: A Visit to The Archive

“I told you, Clara,” the Doctor said, “it’s about keeping score. And occasionally receiving messages from my wife. Did I tell you I had a wife? Well, I do. Got married in a universe where all of time happened at once. Her parents were there. They were the youngest ones in attendance.”

Clara Oswin followed the Doctor as he led her through the dark halls of the long-abandoned Delirium Archive. She’d been travelling with him for a while now, but not long enough to realize it was better just to let the Doctor talk. She still hoped to make sense of whatever the Doctor said; her brow furrowed as she tried to put the pieces together.

“A wife?” she said. “From an alternate universe?”

“No, she’s from this one,” the Doctor replied, walking quickly but purposefully through the ancient, dust-coated displays. “She... began in the Tardis, was born on an enemy space station, and then got lost in time until the day she killed me. For the first time.” As he walked, he scanned everything and anything with his sonic screwdriver.

“Your wife... killed you?” Clara asked.

“That was before we fell in love, obviously,” the Doctor checked his sonic readings and abruptly changed direction. “And we kept meeting each other at opposite ends of our time stream. As I got to know her, she knew less and less about me...”

“And you made her in the Tardis?” Clara asked.

“No! I didn’t make her...”

“But you said she began in the Tardis...”

“She began existence in the Tardis, yes.”

“So you did make her!” Clara said.

“No, that’s not it at all.”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“I am not...!” the Doctor stopped and backed into the shadow of a pillar. “Look, it really is quite simple. I was travelling with Amy and Rory, two people very special to me. And they’d just got married, you see. And the night in question, the night my wife to be became more than just a twinkle in Rory’s eye, so to speak, that was Rory and Amy’s wedding night.”

“Oh,” Clara said. And then her eyes widened. “Oh!”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “There was quite a bit of that. You see, they were doing...” To illustrate he held his screwdriver horizontally, formed an ‘o’ with his left hand, and poked the screwdriver into the ‘o’ a couple of times before pulling a revolted face and wiping the screwdriver on his trousers.

“I actually had it at ‘wedding night’, Doctor,” Clara told him.

“Right. Good,” the Doctor replied. “Well, that was the beginning of River Song.”

They kept chatting as they walked, getting closer and closer to whatever it was the Doctor was scanning for. They were nearly there when Clara decided to ask what it was.

“An anomaly,” the Doctor replied. “Something that shouldn’t be here, whose very presence is causing a ripple in the space-time continuum large enough to make the Tardis sit up and take notice. And get knocked off course. Either this anomaly is some timey-wimey freak of nature that must be fixed for the sake of the stability of the universe, or someone’s gone to some trouble to get my... attention.” His voice trailed off as he saw something interesting in a display case on his left.

Clara followed his gaze, then followed him as he hurried toward it.

“What is it?” she asked. “Is there something behind that fez?”

The Doctor didn’t answer. Instead, he unlocked the display case and reached in.

“But it’s just a fez!” Clara said.

“No such thing!” the Doctor lifted it out and placed it on his head.

“Is the fez the anomaly?” Clara prodded.

“Possibly. Who cares?” the Doctor turned to look at his reflection in the glass case door, and that’s when he saw the small metal device that had been under the fez – a device that blinked to life and hovered into the air.

“Ah,” was all the Doctor got out before the device flew at him. “Aah!” he cried, lurching backward into Clara, and they both tumbled into a shelf of antiques that were no doubt ancient and expensive. With a crash, they became worthless.

The Doctor looked up, and noticed he’d dropped his sonic screwdriver. The metal device dropped toward him, stopping in midair just in front of his face.

“Scanning,” it said in a tinny robotic voice while a beam projected out over the Time Lord’s face. “Identity confirmed. Hello, sweetie.”

The device levitated to a metre of the floor, then it projected a beam of solid light. The Doctor and Clara watched as an image took form, resolving into the familiar form of River Song.

“Speak,” the Doctor sat up, “of,” adjusted his bowtie, “the,” and rose to his feet, “devil.”

“He’s got nothing on me,” River said with her patented smile of mischief.

“Don’t I know it,” the Doctor replied. “Clara,” he reached a hand out to help his companion up, “this is River Song. My wife. Or what is left of her. Hologram?”

“Solid light,” River said, and demonstrated by punching him in the arm. “That’s for keeping me waiting. I’ve been here for nearly five hundred years!”

“You could have called,” the Doctor said as he rubbed his arm.

“Too risky,” River said. “He knows your number, Doctor. Not even the Papal Mainframe has that knowledge.”

“Who has his number?” Clara wanted to know.

“Papal Mainframe?” the Doctor said. “That church with the soldiers and Headless Monks and the base on Demon’s Run? The order of the Silence? That Madame Kovarian woman who kidnapped Amy in order to make, well... you?”

“Yes,” River said.

“Told you,” the Doctor said to Clara.

“But what you didn’t know,” River said, “what I didn’t know for the longest time... Doctor, Amy Pond had twins.”

The Doctor turned back to River, his face serious. “What?” he asked.

“I have a brother,” River told him. “He was raised by Captain Manson, the one you named...”

“...Colonel Runaway,” the Doctor finished for her. He put his screwdriver back in his pocket, then walked to a nearby display and nabbed a couple of antique chairs. One he offered to Clara, but he kept the old wooden rocking chair for himself.

“You’d better tell me everything,” the Doctor said, the seriousness on his face offset by the chair’s slow rocking, and the fez he held in his hands.

 

River talked; the Doctor and Clara listened. Clara chuckled when River explained how she’d prepared for the Doctor’s eventual arrival, placing her upgraded holoprojector under a fez and setting it to activate when the fez was removed from its display.

“Who else would take an antique fez from a display case in an abandoned museum that hasn’t seen a visitor in over a thousand years?”

The rest of her story was a lot more serious, and sobering. River told them what she knew of Dirge Manson and his plan, including how he’d coaxed information out of her. The Doctor listened intently, his chair no longer rocking, the fez on the floor, forgotten.

“That’s... horrible,” Clara said when River had finished.

“Apparently he’d been planning this for most of his life,” River said, “because he never expected me to get the job done. I was the last piece he needed.”

“Because you knew the Doctor was still alive,” Clara said, “and your memory could prove it to the Order of the Silence. Except it didn’t work out that way for Mr. Manson.”

“No, it did not,” River said with a satisfied smile. “I’m certain that wasn’t part of my brother’s plan. When he finds out...”

“Never mind about him,” Clara said. “You said Dirge was going to kidnap the Doctor at an earlier point in his timeline. But he can’t have done, because the Doctor is here, now. Isn’t that right... Doctor?”

Clara and River turned to look. The Doctor stood with his back to the rocking chair, staring into space. His hands shook; he crossed them over his chest immediately.

“Doctor?” River asked.

The Doctor turned his head slightly, offering them a quarter of his profile. Clara gasped; the face she saw wasn’t that of the Doctor she’d come to know. Rather, it was the visage of a scared little boy.

He turned away again. His body shook; he tried to get it under control but could not. River approached and laid a hand on his shoulder...

The Doctor spun around into River’s arms and cried. Deep, bellowing sobs from the innermost reaches of his soul, beyond his ability to control. River’s mouth hung open in astonishment, but her grip around the Doctor remained strong.

“Please, sir!” the Doctor wailed as River guided him to the floor. “Don’t let the bad man hurt me!”

Clara turned and ran away. River glared after her, disgusted and furious. She wanted to shout but did not; instead she stroked the Doctor’s hair and continued to comfort him, and hoped the damage to his mind wasn’t permanent.

 

Clara ran through the Archive, not caring where she was going. She could not see the Doctor like that. It... wasn’t the Doctor at all. What could have done that to him?

Clara forced herself to stop running. It didn’t matter what had been done. What did matter was that her friend needed her. He’d lost his strength; she and River would help him find it again. Clara took a deep breath to steady her nerves, then turned around to go back.

Her path was blocked by a strange long-haired man in a Wild Bill costume, complete with cravat and vest. He eyed her warily; she eyed him warily right back.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“I shouldn’t think so,” Clara replied. “Who are you?”

“That depends,” the strange man replied. “Are you a security person intent on setting off a multitude of noisy alarms?”

“And what if I am?” Clara said. There was something familiar about this man; she didn’t feel threatened by him at all. “Are you not supposed to be here, either?”

“I never let a thing like that determine where I travel,” he said. “Especially not when I’m looking for something. What about you? Why have you broken into this place?”

“What makes you think I broke in?”

“Because you,” he pointed at her, “aren’t supposed to be here. Either.”

“Oh, right,” Clara said, realizing her mistake. “Well, I’m also looking for something with my friend. And I need to get back to him, he’s not well.”

“Perhaps I can help,” the man with the cravat said. “I am a doctor.”

“I don’t think so,” Clara made her way past him. “He’s the Doctor.”

“Is he?” the strange man said, turning to follow her. “Perhaps I’ll come anyway. I think he and I might have a lot in common.”

 

The Doctor was still struggling for control when Clara returned; River flashed her an angry look but said nothing.

“It’s... it’s a...” the Doctor said. “I don’t know what it is! I can’t remember!”

“But part of you does remember,” River told him. “When I told you about my brother, it must have triggered repressed memories! If you can remember more...”

“Nooo!” the Doctor wailed, and he pulled himself from River’s arms and curled up on the floor. “No, no I can’t, no!”

Clara looked up and saw the long haired, cravat-wearing man approaching.

“This really isn’t a good time,” she hissed at him.

“I can see that,” he replied, stepping past her.

River looked up at the man, startled at the unexpected intrusion. Then her eyes widened in recognition.

“It’s you,” she said.

“You know me?” the strange man said.

“I know all your faces, Doctor,” River replied. “Can you help him?”

“Doctor?” Clara asked.

The 8th Doctor knelt before his future counterpart and helped him into a sitting position. The 11th Doctor shook, arms clutched across his chest, inarticulate sounds coming from his mouth. His younger incarnation gently took his face in his hands, and looked him in the eyes.

The Doctor’s shivering stopped. He gazed back at his past self, and a calm came over him.

Clara sidled over to River Song and knelt beside her. River noted the perplexed expression on her face, but chose not to volunteer anything until she asked.

“Is that...?”

“The Doctor, yes. Eighth.”

“What are they doing?” Clara asked. The two Doctors had taken hold of each other’s hands and closed their eyes.

“A meeting of the minds,” River said. “Hopefully it will help him cope with the memories of what happened to him.”

“I’ve never seen him like...”

“Is that why you ran away?” River asked pointedly.

“I... I didn’t mean...” Clara stammered, the tone in River’s voice freezing her heart in mid-beat.

“You don’t ever run from the Doctor,” River fixed her with a glare. “Especially not when he needs you. And if he’s taken you into the Tardis, given you your own key to the door, then he needs you. Is that understood?”

Clara wanted a snarky remark that would show she could not be intimidated, but none came. Because she was intimidated.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Good,” said River. “Because if you ever do again...”

And then, both of the Doctors screamed.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have been enjoying this series, please take a look at some of my other work! You can find my ebook The Five Demons You Meet In Hell here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/367849 Check it out! You'll be glad you did. Hey, would I lie to you?


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